Recently, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, a division of Johnson & Johnson (China) Investments, announced the official opening of the Johnson & Johnson Life Sciences Incubator, JLABS, in Shanghai. This incubator is the largest JLABS in the world in terms of floor space, and the first in the Asia Pacific region.
According to Paul Stoffels, Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee and Chief Scientific Officer of Johnson & Johnson, "China, and Shanghai in particular, is undoubtedly a fertile ground for innovation in biotechnology, and new drug development. China is a very favorable environment for drug discovery, development, and approval passage. Regulatory reforms have made it easier to research new drugs and introduce innovative drugs into China." In the past two years, Johnson & Johnson has had as many as 13 new drugs approved by the FDA in China.
Additionally, pharmaceutical giant Bayer has launched its G4A gas pedal program, and for the third year in a row has hosted an open innovation program in Shanghai called Bayer Startups, which provides office space, investment, and expertise to young digital health startups. The program is divided into two parts: Growth, for early-stage startups wishing to partner with Bayer, which will provide a one-time initial investment of 50,000 to 100,000 euros; and Advance, for more mature startups, which will depend on negotiations between the startup and Bayer.
Still, the multinational healthcare giants' investments in startups may not be a shortcut compared to the sniffy Silicon Valley tech giants, and in late 2017, Microsoft invested $45 million in Adaptive Biotechnologies, an experimental healthcare company looking to apply its advanced cloud-based technology to the life sciences sector. Adaptive is developing a so-called "immunomedicine platform" to change the way diseases are treated.
Microsoft's investment has already paid off at least fourfold. Last Thursday, Adaptive launched on the Nasdaq, doubling its share price by 102 percent at the close of trading. Microsoft has also been the biggest beneficiary of Adaptive, whose competitors include Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Qiagen and Thermo Fisher Scientific. The company's chief technology officer, Sean Nolan, formerly of Microsoft, leads the Health Vault team that focuses on software that stores people's health data.
Google Venture Capital, Google's venture capital fund, has been investing in the life sciences since 2009. Its notable investments include gene sequencing startup 23andme and healthcare big data company Flatiron Health.
In the global capital market, investment in biotech startups is also very active. According to data, 30% of the capital invested in biotech companies in the US last year came from Chinese capital, and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange opened the IPO floodgates for pre-commercialization biotech companies for the first time ever. The FDA's first approval of a cancer drug developed by a Chinese company has also accelerated China's development as a "new factory" for biotech R&D, which will have a profound impact on the global biotech industry.